Tragedy and Exploitation – The Progressive Way

But although the side of liberty has the statistics, progressives play on emotion. Facts don’t matter in a world of crying children, and progressives know it. A complicated issue is offered a simple solution that appeals to the feeling of helplessness and promises to alleviate it. It’s a tactic used by despots throughout history.

Since we have a media that functions as the ground troops for the progressive movement, that they would line up to offer their megaphone surprised no one. A manufactured protest of anti-Second Amendment progressive activists that attracted only a couple-dozen people (there were more reporrters there than protesters) received more coverage from the Democratic Media Complex than all the huge Tea Party protests. The event came together as if it were an Ikea desk sitting in the corner just waiting for the opportunity to be assembled.

All three major networks ran hour-long specials Friday night reiterating the limited information they had and featuring literal guesses as to what must’ve happened. Facts don’t matter when trying to scare people.

The most despicable part of the media coverage was the interviews. Children as young as these vultures could find had cameras in their faces seeking any sound bite they could milk for ratings. But those children wouldn’t be there were their parents not feet away giving permission and granting their own interviews about their person relief.

No one can blame a parent for an immeasurable sense of relief over finding their child unharmed, but they can be blamed for sticking themselves and their child in front of television cameras to spread that relief to a grieving community. Has the allure of “fame,” no matter how fleeting, overruled our sense of decency?

The president was reserved and presidential in his remarks, and the White House said this is not the time to press an agenda (we’ll see how long that lasts). But their allies would have none of it. Progressive activists and their fellow travellers in the media have a storied history of dancing on graves to advance their agenda, but rarely have they danced so gleefully on such tiny graves yet to be dug. Time will tell which argument wins the day, but I have my suspicions. As President Obama’s former chief of staff once famously said, “You never want a serious crisis go to waste.”